Haunted Castle (Arcade, 1988)

The notorious arcade version of Castlevania 1 that only in recent years became a subject people were interested in (likely because of the total dearth of new 'Vania, so people are going back and mining what exists). Much easier to play now due to its inclusion on the new Castlevania Dominus Collection. While usually arcade versions came before their console counterparts, this one was actually released after the original Castlevania (or Vampire Killer on MSX2).

Here's the splash screen. It took me a minute to notice that Dracula's shoulder isn't a shoulderpad/cape, it's a woman's face and hair! That's right, he's got Simon's wife, Selena. Will the Belmont lineage die here?

In-era ad for the game. Looks like Mrs Belmont has temporarily escaped!

So this thing was basically a trap. Not even a quarter trap, a soul trap. In the original release, this game was SUPER difficult and gave you limited lives. That's right, limited lives in an arcade game. But why though, isn't that counterproductive to making money?

We start with the wedding of Simon and Selena. Everything's good and they're on their way to sire more Belmonts when...

Dracula swoops in and flies off with Selena. This is supposed to be an alternate take on the first Castlevania (which got a whole bunch of alternate takes, at this point). Six stages of arcade action!

The visuals are real nice, first of all. Get the vibe that this is them making the first Castlevania the way they wanted to. You've got your whip-strike and not much else, going from left to right and taking out foes.

Simon clutches his side at all times. I think he's supposed to have a hand on his whip, but instead it just looks like he's hunched over with an injury.

The first real challenge comes from... a wall! That's the wall, brother! It attacks like the Yellow Devil from Mega Man only without reforming on the other side.

So in the arcade release, you have all of two extra lives. That's it. Die 3x and the game is over, back to the beginning. This makes it one of the hardest games of all time.

People say stuff like Dark Souls is hard. Well, in those games you can level up your character or you can get better at playing. That's two avenues for defeating the game. You only need to do one or the other. Do both, and the game is easy. Unlimited lives, generous save points, never need to waste time.

Then you've got THIS game. 3 lives, no level ups, and not a whole lot of getting good at the game when the controls are so limited. It becomes a memorization game (remembering where foes will pop up) and good luck with that over however many tries.

Simon has a really sad animation when he gets hit. I mean look at him, damn.

Map screen. So normally, just getting past stage 1 is tough. However, the Switch version of this game lets you give yourself 99 lives, so that's no longer an issue. Also the game can be adjusted so enemies kill you in a more normal 4 or 8 hits (in the original arcade version pretty much everything killed you in two hits, on top of only having three lives).

There's another neat trick where you can sacrifice a life to give yourself an extra health meter (which makes you effectively immortal in the Switch version). In the arcade version this gives the game a bit of strategy, as you must decide whether to go with the 3 lives given or triple them up for one extra-strength life. The one strong life is probably the way to go, except that pits are a thing and can ruin that plan.

We've got some special weapons here, like the Boomerang. None of them are that useful (due to their extremely limited ammo). There are no candles to whip in this game, so you can only get hearts from slaying foes. They're uncommon, and when they do show up they tend to bounce away from you like they're fleeing. So good luck maintaining any ammo!

"Our time has come!" screeches the Sahagin. Against this loser, they might finally have a chance!

I tried playing through in normal arcade 3-lives style (tripled up) and incidentally made it to Stage 2. Time to CHEAT.

...what's that statue doing with her right hand? Damn sexy Castlevania statues!

Power UP

Now with 99 lives, I forage ahead. Maybe these sexy statues can make our hero feel better, as he limps along.

First boss is Medusa, and it's a fun fight. Just jump and whip.

Dracula's Castle materializes. They really nailed the visuals and set pieces in this game, especially for 1988. The problem is in the design philosophy and leaving out the "fun" part, which is why this game was generally pretty forgotten for a long time.

It's possible to get whip upgrades that turn the whip into a ball and chain. No relation to Simon's wife. Ehh? EHH?

Continuing on, we appear to be in Hell. Wonder how many arcade players even got to see Stage 2.

Second boss is the BONE DRGN. The key to winning in this fight is to jump n' whip.

Stage 3 (the castle entrance) has these oddball sections where you get warped into a sub-dimension to fight angelic creatures. Not sure what's going on here.

Simon's pathetic hit animation is on full display as he gets assaulted by gnomes. Their tiny hands reached into places he didn't even think were possible, causing momentary pleasure followed by unspeakable pain.

More gnomes attack during the third boss fight. Not even sure what this thing is supposed to be. I jump and whip.

Second "half" or so of the game is in the castle. Putting aside the extreme difficulty (in the arcade, anyway), the total runtime of the game is only about 25 minutes. So running through it over and over was at least possible...if you had no other arcade games to play. In an arcade.

Stage 4 theme is a solid one. Lot of foreboding here.

The fully-upgraded whip turns into a sword, and it's actually a bit of a downgrade. It does more damage but it swings slower.

Eyes. What's in the wall? WHAT'S IN THE WALL??

The best spot in the game to die is near the end of level 4. You have to jump across these rapidly-declining platforms over a pit.

I make it on the second go, but on a first go you're pretty much guaranteed a death.

Fourth boss: Giant rock guy! I, get this, jump and whip.

Stage 5 is a partially vertical ascent up the castle tower. Some more impressive visuals here for 1988. Arcade was well ahead of home consoles at the time.

The second-to-last boss is Fronken-Steen. I expected Death to show up, but nope. Not in this one! The two keys to winning this battle are 1) Jump and 2) Whip.

Stage 6 (the bridge to Dracula) is very short, and barely counts as a stage compared to the others. It's a bit of a break. Or would be, if the original arcade version had normal continues.

The bridge starts collapsing, as is tradition, and the only option is to book it to the other end while taking a lot of hits from swooping bats. I could see this being the end of the line for arcade players...as if it was possible to get this far on the couple of lives the game originally gave people.

Final boss. Dracula has two forms, as usual. First he's in normal Dracula form and throws fireballs. Surprisingly this fight is easier than it usually is in this series, given how tough the rest of the game is. By now most players should have mastered jumping and whipping, and that's all you have to do here.

Second form is a GIANT HEAD. I jump and whip.

Simon and Selena live happily ever after (that's her in the veil) while the castle sinks into a lake, and that's it for Haunted Castle. Not a terrible game but not a good one either. Actually playable thanks to the modern improvements/fixes added to it (namely simply letting people enter more quarters, and take reasonable damage). A good bonus addition for the latest CV collection, as a curiosity more than anything else.

Ya know, I think the main reason the arcade version is so borked (with no continues) is because of that oddball ability to boost your HP using extra lives. They had that idea, but couldn't make that work with also having continues / more lives. So they just curbed the continues down to nothing and put it out there.

Time for some very weirdly-similar music:

The stage 6 theme (my favorite track in this game) bears a striking resemblance to...

...the stage 4 theme of Journey to Silius, which was by a different company. At least the beginning of the themes, that is. And both bear a striking resemblance to...

...Zero's theme from Mega Man X, which was by yet another company. How'd this riff make it into so many things?

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